DON’T WASTE Your Preseason! (The Ultimate Preseason Training Guide)

Now that summer is coming to an end, school is starting back up. We're entering into a crucial time of the year, which is the preseason. The preseason can absolutely make or break your upcoming season. And these few short weeks ahead can be the difference between you showing up prepared, confident, ready to play at a high level, or you showing up unprepared and having a slow start. And most players can't afford a slow start with roster spots, starting spots, and playing time on the line. So it's absolutely critical that you maximize the preseason and you get the most out of these next few weeks. So in this video, I'm going to give you three steps to maximizing your preseason, making sure that you have the best season of your life so far this upcoming season. Let's get into it before you do anything. The first step that's crucially important to start off the preseason is just to identify what your goals are for this upcoming season. So is your goal to be the starting point guard? Is your goal to be a great ball handler for your team? Is your goal to shoot 40% from three, whatever you're, you know, give yourself two, three, four goals for this upcoming season and make sure you know what they are so that you can tailor your work that you're doing over these next few weeks towards those goals. And now that you have a focus for the preseason, everything is going to be purposeful, everything is going to matter, and it's going to be much more beneficial for you to have something that you're working towards as opposed to just kind of aimlessly floating around. Now the second thing I want to talk about, and I think this is really, really important and I haven't really heard anybody else talk about this, but it's the fact that there's a progression throughout the preseason. So as the preseason starts, we're in learning mode and pretty much the whole off season is learning mode. So as soon as the season ends in February, March, and you know, you have the time from, let's say March, all throughout the summertime, you should be in learning mode as much as possible. What I mean by that is you're prioritizing getting better over how you perform in the moment. So workout should be geared towards expanding what you can do. What that means is that it's going to be challenging and so it's probably going to be a lot of mess ups, mistakes. There's going to be times you don't feel super confident in what you're doing because you're pushing yourself to expand and get better. And that Might mean that in a lot of workouts, when learning is the focus, you don't perform exceptionally well. Like, if someone walked in and watched you, you might not look great, right? But you're prioritizing learning. What that's going to do is, is it's going to force your body to adapt, to find a way to meet that challenge. And essentially, it's sink or swim. So in order for you to get better, you got to learn how to swim in that difficult situation. And that's actually how improvement happens when there's that challenge present. So it's really important that that's our focus throughout the whole offseason and entering into the preseason when learning is prioritized, there's going to be a lot of times where you don't feel super confident in your abilities. Think, for example, if you're making a change to your shot, right, you're probably not going to feel great about your shot right away. The first few days, maybe, that you're working on, a few weeks even, that you're working on and making that change, you might not. You might shoot worse even, and you're not going to feel super confident. But as you get better and you learn and you're able to start building those reps and feeling confident in what you're doing, improving, all of a sudden, that's going to pay off for you. You're going to shoot better than you could before then, right? That's the process of learning, and it's very similar. We're trying to get better at any sort of skill. If we're putting ourselves in a challenging situation, you're probably not going to feel super confident right off the bat. But eventually, over time, you know, as you adapt, you get better at that thing. The preseason has that same sort of mindset, right. The same sort of approach, especially now, early on. But eventually there's a shift. So think about it like, you know, maybe your winter season starts in mid November, right? Right. Maybe November 15th. That's when your first practice is. And so you think you have end of August until then. And pretty much how I would. How I would split it up is like that first, probably the majority of that preseason. So we'll say end of August through mid to late November. So we'll say end of August to mid to late October. We're still putting ourselves in learning mode, right? So you take your goals that you have in terms of what you want to be come the season time, and you're just focused on getting as good as possible at those sorts of things. So you're putting pressure on yourself. And I talk about this a lot in my podcast. So if you don't know what I'm talking about with that, I'll link a podcast above those. Going to help you kind of understand, okay, how do I prioritize learning in my workouts? But that's got to be the focus for the majority of the preseason. So August, August, September, and then the majority of October. But then we get to a point we're probably two to four weeks out of the season, where we then want to make more of a shift to basing and focusing our workouts on performance and building confidence that we feel good getting to the season. Because what the season is about is a season is all about performing, right? That's why we work in the off season. So we get there and we can perform at our best. And that's why we spend a lot of time in learning mode. Because, you know, when you start the off season, you kind of are what you are and you have a certain capacity in terms of how well you can play. Maybe Your capacity is 20 points in a game. That's the absolute best that you can do, right? Doesn't mean you're gonna do that every game, but that's like, if you play your absolute best, that's probably what you get. Our goal is to expand that so that now it's 25 points or it's 30 points. So we have to be in learning mode to do that. But then once we get to the season, we want to go back into performance mode. And now you're just doing what you've learned. So now you should be able to go out and score 30 points because you expanded your game over the course of the off season. But what getting ourselves into that performance mode in our workouts now is going to do is get us prepared to perform. And it's going to get you confident in your ability to perform when you have to. When the lights are on now. Now, this might mean that your workouts are going to become a little bit less challenging from a skill perspective, but you're really just focused on feeling good about what you're doing. So how can you do this? Like, how can you make that shift so that you feel good and you build that confidence in your workouts and. And I think the first thing is just to see the ball go in as much as possible, since our goal is to really peak our confidence by the time that mid November date rolls around. You really want your workouts to help you prove to Yourself, like, yeah, I can perform at a high level in those situations I need to perform in. So think about the shots you might need to make. Maybe you know that you're going to have to make a lot of corner threes. Like that's going to be a shot you're going to shoot a lot. So in your workouts you've just got to see that shot go in as much as possible. So you get to the season and then you're asked to do that and you're really confident in your ability to do that, right. Maybe you know that. Okay, I'm going to get a lot of mid range pull ups coming off of ball screens. Like, I know that in our offense we shoot a lot of those. So you got to see that ball go in as much as possible in your workouts leading up to the season so that you're prepared and you're confident to go out and execute that at a high level. Right. That's really what I mean by doing that. So, for example, in the off season, specifically like spring, summer with my players and like, I don't care about how they feel confidence wise in June, July, like it doesn't really matter, right? If they have like a big AAU tournament, well, maybe that's a little bit of an exception. But for the most part in the summer when it's learning mode from day to day, it doesn't matter to me how confident they might feel because the only care is getting better. Now once we get to the winter or the late fall and we're starting to gear up and prepare for the season, that's where confidence does really play a part. And then I've got to make a shift and, and now I care more about making sure that they see the ball go in a lot, they see themselves being successful a lot and they really start to build that confidence to perform and do the things that they've been working on, right? So we're going to change up how we do things. So we're probably going to do a lot more shooting where they're just getting rep after rep after rep. Don't really have to think about it much, but they just get to see the ball go in and they get to feel good about it. And they can leave the gym after every workout feeling really good. In the summer they might leave sometimes really frustrated with themselves or feeling terrible about how they shot that day or how they perform that day. And that's, that's a good thing. But come preseason, we want that to be every day you feel Confident. You feel ready to go? You feel like, yeah, if I had to play a game tomorrow, I'd be ready to go. That's what we want to do. So making sure that you see the ball go in a lot when it comes to the shots that you need to be able to make in the season. Like, don't underestimate the power that confidence plays in your ability to be successful. So we want to gear up our workouts in the preseason to really prime us to play with a high level of confidence. Also start to think about what makes you personally feel confident in your workouts. Is there a certain routine that you like? So, you know, a lot of my players like to end their workouts with, you know, they have to swish two straight threes or they got to like, whatever that might look like for you. Is there a certain routine that you have that makes you feel good before maybe when you start a workout, when you leave a workout, is there a certain amount of makes or a certain type of shot you need to make a certain amount of for you to feel good, for you to feel confident? Definitely start to prioritize that, especially as we get towards the end of the preseason. Now, the third thing that's crucial to making sure that you maximize your preseason is that you need to get yourself in really good basketball shape. You need to feel strong, you need to feel healthy. All three of these things are crucial as we approach the season. First of all, you should be playing a lot. Like, you should be playing as much pickup as much basketball as you can right now to get yourself in basketball shape. But maybe even on top of that, you add some extra sprints to the end of your workouts or whatever. You. Maybe you just make your workouts a little bit more intense from just a cardiovascular point of view where you're running a little bit more, more sprints, more full court stuff. And I think that's really important. It's another shift that I make in my workouts, for sure, throughout the summertime, we're not doing a ton that's focused on, you know, building that capacity when it comes to just, like, being in shape. Because again, you know, it's aau, there's practices, team open gyms where you're getting a lot of that, right? When you get to the fall, you're not playing aau, you might not be playing as many tournaments. So you got to make sure that you. You're in basketball shape by the time that mid November date or whatever the date is, your season starts. Starts. So be sure that you take care of that. So get yourself in shape. If that means you got to run some sprints at the end of every workout, if that means that you just got to find ways to play three or four times a week, do that, because that's going to be super important and then you're going to get to the season. There's so much else you got to worry about. You got to worry about implementing offenses, defenses, taking all that in stride. You got to practice every day, you got to do all these sorts of things. The last thing you want to also worry about is being super tired because you're not prepared physically for the demand that basketball is going to place on you. So take care of that now in the preseason so that it's not a problem for you when the season gets here, that's the first thing. Also making sure that you feel strong. So really pressing into the work you're doing in the weight room and not looking at it as like, okay, once the season gets here, then I don't have to lift anymore. You want to make sure that that's not you. Like, you've got to maintain what you have. So whether it's getting in once, twice a week, once the season gets here, like, you've got to maintain what you. But you really should be peaking in terms of how good you feel physically by the time the season gets here. So you really have got a, you know, as much as maybe you're locked into the weight room now, like, take that up a level, you know, as the season, as the preseason rolls on, so that you're at your strongest and you feel your best physically as the season rolls around, the making sure that you're healthy. So if you have something that's nagging, you have an ankle injury that, you know, you, you, you hurt your ankle over the summer and it's kind of still lingering a little bit. Deal with it. Like, take care of that now. So that again, it's not something that you have to also worry about when the season gets here. You're trying to worry about learning this defense and earning this playing time and doing this and doing that. And oh, also I have an ankle injury that I'm worried about. Like, take care of that now. So make sure that you're getting yourself into basketball shape, you are getting as strong as possible and feeling physically good. And then make sure, number three, that you're healthy and that you do everything in your power to be healthy as the season rolls around. That way, physically, mentally, you're going to be at your best and you're going to be ready to perform and something that's going to hold you back. If you do these three things, you're going to maximize the few short weeks that you have left to gear yourself up and get yourself prepared for the season. And I know this is the beginning of the preseason, but the season is going to be here before you even know it, right? Right. So now is the time to make sure you lock in and you do what you need to do going along with that. Our preseason sale and all of our programs is going on for two more days, so it's going to end on Friday. Everything is 20% off right now. I'm going to flash some screenshots on the screen right now just of guys who have gone through some of our training programs. If your goals for the season have anything to do with improving your shooting, your ball handling, your finishing, your basketball iq, your scoring moves, just your ability to be effective and building your confidence, we cover all of that inside of those training programs. So if you click the top link in the description below, you're going to be able to check those out. Use the code Preseason 2023 for 20% off of everything. Again, you got two more days for that, so make sure you check that out. Make sure you guys drop a like subscribe and also check in my description down below for my free Leap Perimeter score program as well. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.